The recommendations of the committee constituted to look into the claims of endosulfan victims in Kasargod and decide on the need to set up a tribunal to settle those, appear to be largely sympathetic towards the Plantation Corporation and endosulfan manufacturers. PN Venugopal reports.

Kerala spearheads community-care health revolution

A unique home-based palliative and chronic care movement is sweeping through Kerala. Thousands of trained citizens are volunteering two hours a week to take care of the chronically ill in villages and cities. Funding for this community-based scheme that has won WHO recognition comes in cash and kind from citizens, including schoolchildren, bus drivers, labourers and othersM Suchitra
reports.

Jeffrey M Smith, an authority on genetically modified organisms and the author of Genetic Roulette, says that 65 health risks from GMOs provide irrefutable evidence. of harm. In this interview he explains why GM technology must be confined to the lab.
S Usha reports.

How did two major
operators in the POPs manufacturing-sector become part of India's
official delegation to a conference which aims to eliminate their
production and use? P N Venugopal.
reports on the embarassing, but unabashed capture of officialdom by a
manufacturer.

38 babies died in one hospital in
Thiruvananthapuram over the past four months, shocking a state which
boasts of the lowest infant mortality rate in the country. The much
discussed and extolled Kerala model of health development is ailing,
reports P N Venugopal.

Dr
Yehuda Kovesh from Melbourne, Australia is a Consultant
Endocrinologist to the UmonHon among other tribes as well as Visiting
Professor of Medical Anthropology at the University of Havana, Cuba.
While on an Indian tour early this month, he visited the Athirappilly
waterfall, 70 kms from Kochi. It is his experience with the Adivasis of
the near by Vazhachal forest area.

On JUNE 26, 2006, the Kerala High Court ordered that the Rs 50 lakh
allocated by Kerala government for the victims of the pesticide
endosulfan in the state's Kasargod district should be disbursed
expeditiously PN Venugopalreports

Environmental activists and locals in Kerala's Ernakulam region allege with evidence that the Pollution Control Board is entirely ineffective in preventing contamination of the Periyar river. M Suchitra.